Home is the place
by 7.06andcounting
Summary: Side fic to 'Adaptation'. Dom finds out that leaving prison is not the same thing as leaving prison behind. And coming back is not always the same as coming home.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I apologize in advance for the bad language. If you thought Tim had a mouth on him, you ain't heard nothin' yet!**

**Title taken from the line, ****'Home is the place, where when you have to go there, They have to take you in.' From '_The Death of the Hired Man_' by Robert Frost.**

* * *

"Family support can be vital in these cases."

_These cases_? He can go screw himself sideways. I ain't nobody's '_case_'. But I keep my face expressionless, as the head honcho of the parole board bitches on about the fact that no one showed to speak up for me. The bald guy next to him jumps in:

"Mr. Riley's mother and brother are both in full time employment. And his sister is currently on bed rest, due to a difficult pregnancy..."

Holy shit. Little Angel got knocked up? I make myself focus and gradually realize that the dumb bald bastard is making a good point. What he's saying is, that I fuckin' well _do_ have a family, they're just all kind of busy with _real_ life, so they can't be here listening to goddamn do-gooders hash over my _unreal_ one.

"...And, with gainful employment, something that I have arranged and will supervise carefully, Mr. Riley will have every reason to forge a secure position as a useful member of society..."

I have a job on the outside. Apparently. Well, fuck me.

xxXxx

Ain't no more sunlight on this side of the gate than the other. But I blink anyway.

"_Bus stop's over the other side. Watch for traffic now."_ Fucking comedian, the exit guard. Fuckin' thieves too, all of 'em. I got my clothes back, the jacket, jeans and shirt I was wearing when I went in, my wallet too, complete with two bucks and a Trojan. But not the switch or chain I was packing and not my smokes neither. Although I guess ten year old weeds would be kind of stale. I pat my wallet for about the seventh time. It feels weird to have anything in my pockets. To have pockets.

There's a piercing whistle that makes me jump to attention as I cross the road. _What did I do wrong? Where was I supposed to cross?_

And then I see him, standing next to a beaten up Dodge.

"Save you the bus fare?" is Curly's greeting. I go over to the god-awful car. No two panels are quite the same color. He got real tall, I need to tilt my chin slightly, to look him in the eye.

"Hey, Dom," he says, the grin fading into something more nervy looking.

And I want him to be Tim.

I figured, for a long, long time that it would be Tim meeting me out here. Even after he wrote me that he'd been suckered into the fuckin' Army, I figured he'd still be home before me. Then I got a letter from Curly. At that point, he was still ten years old in my mind, still the annoying brat I saw at dinner sometimes. Might as well have been ten, for the spelling and handwriting in the letter, although I guess I ain't got nothing to crow about on that front. But I worked out what he was trying to tell me was, that Tim was out the Army. And that was the last they heard. Curly tried to keep up some kind of letter writing after that, but we ain't exactly ideal penpal material and we never made no arrangements for today.

So I ask him, "How'd ya know to be here?"

"Your PO. He came by. Wanted to know if you could live with Ma."

Oh. Right. Dumb bald guy, arranging my life for me, again. I remember the parole officer, or social worker or whatever, who got assigned me back when I was in the reformatory. I don't think he even knew my name. This one sounds like he's gonna be harder to shake.

"Thing is," Curly's saying, as we climb in what passes for his wheels, "thing is, she didn't think it was...I mean, it's kind of...Thing is, I got me a place, so you can stay with me. Yeah?"

Yeah. I see how the 'thing' is. Ria ain't rolling out any welcome mat. Same old, same old. Only this time it ain't her ma pickin' up the pieces, it's Curly. I tell him thanks, just 'til I get on my feet. He shrugs.

I spend a few minutes getting used to being in a car. I ain't gonna own to feeling sick to my stomach, but I'm glad enough when we hit the highway and Curly can stop throwing the junker around every corner at speed.

After about half an hour, Curly asks if I wanna eat. We're coming up on a diner and he's hungry apparently. I ain't, because it ain't twelve thirty so it ain't lunchtime, but I tell him okay.

The noise of the diner hits my ears as wrong, somehow, but I'm in the booth opposite Curly before I work out why. The mess hall wasn't never quiet, it ain't the noise that's freaking me. It's _different_ voices. It's the _tones_. I can hear the broad behind the counter yelling orders through to the kitchen. I can hear chicks across the room laughing. Kids even.

"_Dom_."

I was twisting around to try and see the girls who are laughing somewhere, when Curly jabbed my arm with the menu. I've slapped it out of his hand before I think. He shoots me a surprised look, pushing it back in front of me.

"You wanna order or not?" The waitress is old and tired looking. I realize they was probably both talking to me. I grab the menu and look hard, like I'm in the habit of choosing my food. Out the corner of my eye I see the woman flick her eyes over me. "How about a cheeseburger, darlin'?" Her voice softens. "Maybe some fries?" I nod and she scratches on her pad. "Coffee?"

"Juice," I blurt. "No, wait. Coke."

She tilts her head and smiles a little, walking away. I resist the feeling that comes over me to rub my prison crew cut and settle for scratching the back of my neck. I wonder how many guys she sees in here, first stop out the Pen, paralyzed by the simple fact of having a choice.

The waitress brings silverware with the food, although Curly ignores it and tears into his burger two handed. I pick up the fork, then the knife, weighing them, working out how much they would be worth on my block. How many weeds, how many favors would I be up, if I passed them on? Even a table knife would be highly prized above a sharpened toothbrush or piece of jagged tile. I resist the urge to put them in my pocket and pick up my glass instead.

The soda is cold, iced - despite the fact that it's winter - and it tastes like my mouth was waiting to be woken up this whole time. Whatever horse piss they served up in the mess hall, it wasn't never the real deal.

Curly pauses between mouthfuls and grins at me as I set down the empty glass and belch.

"Only Coke refreshes." I wink, but he don't get it, just asks me if I wanna buy the world one, or something equally freaky. I wonder if he expects me to pay my way and I'm conscious of the fact that the prices on the menu are double what I expected – this place is charging thirty frigging cents for a cheeseburger.

The smell of the food is getting to me, so I open up the burger and peer between the layers, then reassemble it. It tastes good.

"You used to take the tomato out. When we was kids." Curly watched me inspect the food, but he's missed the point of why. "Gramma never let me, but you always tossed it away."

I shrug. I guess circumstances have made me less of a picky eater. Apart from checking for bits of broken glass, or any other extras, that is.

He sees me watching a family in a booth across from us. The dad is losing his rag with the brats' squabbling and he orders them all out to the car. I stay completely motionless, except for my eyes, which follow him as he goes past. He flinches in surprise and I smile, slowly. He's cussing under his breath as he leaves.

Curly raises his eyebrows. "You know him?"

I nod. I don't explain that the guy, that _family man, _is a guard on the night shift on my block, famous for being quick with his nightstick and his fists. And it makes me surprisingly happy that he can't control his own damn kids.

xxXxx

There's a freaky mesh of known and unknown as we drive into the neighborhood; there are buildings I recognize, but they ain't always next to each other, new stores and apartment blocks have appeared, or there are gaps where others have been torn down.

I wind down the window, catcalling and whistling, as we go past a couple of fine looking chicks.

"What the hell you doin', man?" Curly snaps.

I laugh, high on freedom and the possibilities that stretch in front of me. "Hit the brakes, they was smokin' hot."

"They was carrying school books. You wanna get both of us arrested?"

Shit. They looked...eighteen to me. Maybe seventeen. The kind of girl I would have had no trouble picking up. Before. I wind the window back up and lean back into the seat.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

One time, I remember, Morris's girl complained that a regular customer, over to the grocery store where she worked, was hitting on her. We waited for him in the parking lot and broke his windshield. Told him he was a dirty old man, 'cause she was only sixteen. Like we were. He must have been about thirty. Fuck.

Curly's looking down an intersection, away from me, deciding which way to turn. "Did you wanna go see Ma?"

"Sure." I nod, then catch myself. "Wait. You talkin' about Ria now?" He gulps, embarrassed. For himself or for me I ain't sure. "I know you know," I tell him. "But here's the thing. _Ma_ was my ma, okay? I mean 'Gramma' for you. I ain't never thought of Ria as 'Ma'. Just so you know."

"Okay." He seems to relax a little. Then he flicks his eyes over to me. "So which did you answer yes to? Gramma? You wanna go to the cemetery?"

I suddenly hear her voice. _"Dominic, the Lord sees you in your shame. Coming here with the stink of that place still on you." _She always complained about the smell, when she visited me. Always told me my sins were visible to the big guy in the sky. Which was a crock since I didn't hardly never get under the sky.

"Nah," I say to Curly. "Not today. But...you think Ria would wanna...?" Didn't he tell me she wouldn't have me to live with her? Told the PO what he could do with his plan? Maybe that extends to not wanting to see me at all. I think of a delay. "Maybe I should get cleaned up first?" I'm asking, not for permission exactly, but maybe for approval.

"Yeah. I got some threads you can borrow. Get you movin' on from the 'Rebel Without a Cause' look, huh?"

The fuck? He's wearing jeans and a T shirt, same as me. Okay, his jeans are kind of big on the bottom, where mine are tight, with turn ups, but still.

Curly laughs at my reaction. "Time to drag you into the Seventies, man."

He pulls up outside a ratty looking apartment block and takes me up to the third floor. He's like a frigging real estate agent, showing me how to work the water heater and explaining that the one faucet sticks unless you turn it just so. I realize that he's nervous.

"I appreciate this, man. You know that, right? You didn't haveta to put me up." I hope I sound as sincere as I am.

He looks surprised. "Yeah, I did. Ain't nothin' more important than family."

Both of us pause, as that phrase echoes between us. I'd lay money we're thinking about the same person, but right then there's a knock on the door.

Dumb bald guy comes in, unannounced and uninvited, looking disappointed that he don't find us shooting up or having an orgy or something.

"I wanted to see you settled in, Dominic," he says, like he's my den mother, "and to check I had all the details right for Jerome's address."

I stare in surprise as Curly nods.

"I go by 'Jerry'," he grunts. "For work an' stuff."

"Just the two of you living here?" Baldy consults his file. "Because my colleague down at the office mentioned you have another brother...Timothy? Where does he live?"

"California." Curly answers before I can say anything. He sounds so sure.

Baldy looks around the apartment and makes an appointment for me to visit him on Monday. I wonder how he'd react if I sniffed my way around his office, like he just did to us. I close the door on him and ask Curly if that's where Tim is, for real?

He shrugs. "That's where the last post card come from."

"Saying what?"

"Sayin' not to expect him home any time soon."

"Anytime soon? When the fuck was that?"

He tells me. Four years. Longer than he was gone in the Army. And at least we knew where he was then, even if it was the fucking jungle.

"Listen," Curly drops into the one armchair as he speaks, his tone flat. "I made my peace with the fact that he ain't coming back. You'd best do the same."

"I need a drink." The words spill out of me and Curly twitches.

"Don't tell me that. You can _want_ a drink all you like, but _needing_ it is a whole other crap game."

_What?_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This is short, but I figured short is better than nothing.**

* * *

Ria's pad is one place that ain't changed. I could walk up to the door and not be surprised to see Tim come barreling out, ready to hunt up a little action – most likely with Ria screaming in the background that I wasn't to get him into any fucking trouble, if I valued my skin. I wish.

Curly walks right in and I follow, 'cause what else am I going to do?

After the deal with the chicks I yelled at, making me think about our ages, I ain't sure what I'm gonna see, what changes to expect. I know how old Ria is, but I lost perspective somewhere, I guess, because she looks older than forty five to me. Hell, if she ain't starting to look like Ma, peroxide or no peroxide. But that ain't even the real shocker.

If it was freaky to see Curly all grown up, that ain't nothing compared to seeing Angela. She was, like him, frozen as this little ten year old kid in my mind.

Mostly what I remember is Ma telling me, or Tim, or Curly or any combination of us, not to cuss in front of Angela, not to fart in front of her, not to do anything in front of her that might spoil her precious angel self.

Angela stands there, half a scowl on her face, staring me out. If she was a random chick giving me that look I'd write her off as a bitch, sure enough. But suddenly she smiles. And she's beautiful, my little sister.

"I'd forgotten how much you look like Tim." She hugs me, hardly reaching my chest.

You know how you don't haveta think about going down stairs? And if you do try to think it through it gets weird, your movements go all wrong? Like that, just for a second, I forget how to hug someone. I have to remind my arms what to do. It's been a while.

"Welcome home," says Angel and then she's stepping back and wiping her eyes and cussing herself for being a candy-ass. Then her hand clamps across her mouth and she shoots out the room.

Curly rolls his eyes. "She still puking?" he asks Ria, who nods.

"I was the same –" she breaks off, obviously realizing that memories of her own pregnancies ain't exactly tactful, with me stood in front of her.

"You hear from Johnjo and Pat?" I ask her, I ain't real sure why. I hardly knew them, my 'brothers'. They're older than Ria and had left home by the time I was a toddler. The 'in and out of jail' kind of leaving home. Johnjo was around for a while when I was about ten. Ma never talked about them much. It was Danny, who went down in Korea, was her golden boy. Ghosts don't never need parole.

Ria pulls a face. "Got a Christmas card from Johnjo's wife. They're livin' up north. I got the address somewhere. Ain't heard from Pat in a while." She looks like she'd be happy to add me to that list of long lost relatives.

"Uncle Pat the one who married a Cherokee girl?" Curly pipes up.

Ria gives him a tight lipped nod that holds a world of meaning, mostly '_we don't talk about that_.' She fixes me with a look that's so like Ma it's scary. "Curly's doing good. He's got a steady job, now, he don't need no one draggin' him down..."

"I ain't intending on –"

"I mean it, Dom. I ain't happy about you staying at his place, he needs to keep his head straight."

"I'm right here, Ma," says Curly, "an' I told you, everything's cool."

I swallow hard. "I got a job, too. Gotta see the PO, Monday –"

She sniffs. "A weekend's plenty long enough for you to raise hell, an' you know it."

"Fuckin' hell, Ria. Whaddya want from me? _Ten years_ I was in that fucking place, you can't just say 'welcome home'?" I spin around, head for the entryway. Realize that it's the first time I walked out of a place by my own choosing in all those ten fucking years I just mentioned, and I get stuck, frozen by that thought, at the front door.

I'm breathing too hard. I can feel my heart racing but I can't do nothing but stare at the fucking door handle.

"Dom?" I force myself to look at Angela when she speaks to me. She smiles. "Can you an' Curly give me a ride home?" She has to slide past me, to reach the door and open it and once it's open I have no problem walking through, out onto the porch.

It's Curly's car, Curly's the one doing the driving. I wonder why she said it that way? _Can you and Curly _give me a ride home... It ain't like we come as a package. A team. I'mma crash at his for a little while, is all.

"I was there, when Tim found out, about you, y'know." Angela's voice is quiet from the back seat. I don't look around. "He was mad as hell. He said –"

"Angel!" Curly slams his fist into the dashboard.

She lets fly at him. "Why should I shut up about him? It's like you wanna pretend he never existed! He ain't dead, Curly, you get that?" She kicks the back of his seat in frustration and he squawks and the car swerves some. "He ain't dead!" Angela repeats, a note of desperation in her voice. "Jesus Christ, you're as bad as Ma, y'know that? She won't talk about Dom, you won't talk about Tim – "

Curly wrenches the wheel over and the car scrapes the curb, slamming to a stop. He twists around in his seat. "You wanna talk about Tim? _Talk_. Go on. Fuckin' talk! Only you ain't got nothin' new to say, have ya? Anything you gotta say'll be years out of date, won't it?" She tries to get a word in, but he carries right on, "I know what you wanna say, Angel. You wanna go on about how great he was, how he looked out for us, how fucking superhuman he was? Well, tell me this, if he was so fucking great, _where is he now_?"

I wait for her to burst into tears. She don't. The scowl comes back and she flips him the bird. I guess she ain't got no comeback to the truth.

I want to wind the clock back, to when none of 'em knew what I knew. When I could hang out at my _sister_'s house without it being weird. When Tim was here, looking out for them and I only had myself to look out for.

If I was still nineteen and they was still kids, what would I do, apart from tell 'em to shut the hell up? I know, in my heart, that I woulda used Tim as a buffer, woulda told him to get them in line.

I look at Curly and then I look at Angela. How the fuck can they be older than I feel? How do I make it all fit?

"Tell ya one thing Tim wasn't no good at." My comment drops into the space between their glaring match and they turn to me in shock. "He was a crappy driving instructor, 'cause you can't drive for shit, Curly Shepard."

Angel snorts and Curly starts to protest. Then they laugh out loud.

"I was barely legal to drive, when he went away..." Curly begins again and Angel hoots with laughter and slaps him on the shoulder.

"See if you can get me home in one piece, huh?"

An' they're both smiling as we pull away and I feel like I did okay. I ain't sure what I did, but it feels like something.

It ain't the same place as I had. But it feels like it might be _a_ place.


	3. Chapter 3

So we drop Angel at the shitty apartment she calls home. Her husband greets her with a sappy smile that somehow convinces me he's on the level, he ain't gonna do the wrong thing by her. Too loved up. Too stupid. He confirms my opinion by grinning, when we're introduced, and blurting out:

"Right. You're the uncle who's a brother or somethin', yeah?"

"Something, yeah," I agree, as Curly rolls his eyes at Angela and she pulls a face back.

In the car, I ask Curly – in light of what he told me earlier – if he will lend me the price of a bottle of booze. I really want a drink. Curly says I don't gotta be worried about drinking in front of him. He's cool with that. He even goes out still.

"I'm an alcoholic, man, I ain't like a priest, or nothin'." In fact, he offers for us to party right away. "I know this bar where lots of chicks go. You wanna get laid? That's the place."

Do I wanna get laid? Holy Mary, Mother of God, do I wanna get laid...

But I feel kind of spacey, to be honest. Kind of like the world is bigger than I remember. I could do with some walls around me. I tell him I wanna take it slow. Get some sleep, maybe. Hit the town when I'm back on form.

Not only does he agree, he knows where we can get some cheap booze and he swings around past the stock yards, pulling up outside a dive that can't make up its mind if it's a bar or a bunkhouse, to judge from the assortment of trucks and trailers parked up.

While I wait for Curly, I spot a kid minding a carton of puppies, scrawny little things, half black and brown in patches, with paws too big and pink tongues lolling sideways. I get out the car.

"Five bucks, mister?" says the kid, kind of hopeful. "They're real good 'uns."

I pick one up. It wriggles in my hands, trying to lick my face. It's warm. Soft.

"We could get one," I say to Curly, as he reappears. "Couldn't we?"

"Nah, man. We live on the third floor, remember?"

I put the puppy back in the box. My hands feel cold without it.

"Three bucks?...Two? My pop says they're goin' in the river if'n I don't find homes." The kid's eyes are filling up. I shrug and tell him sorry.

We pick up take out – Chinese, Curly's choice – and we head back to the apartment. It tastes even better than the burger at lunchtime. Maybe all food is gonna taste good to me, the rest of my life. I wash it down with the whiskey he got me, leaning back on the couch.

"This guy I knew in County, he reckoned there was a still, down there in Big Mac. That true?" asks Curly, around a mouthful of noodles.

I snort. "Yeah, an' a freakin' cocktail lounge an' all." I grin when he looks disappointed and I go on, "I never saw a still, but there's plenty of stuff washing around. Smuggled in, if you got the dough for a guard on the take, or you can take your chance on going blind on someone's pruno."

"What they make it out of?"

"How the fuck do I know? I only tasted it once. Coulda been made of piss and Draino." I wash the memory down and away.

"Ha. Orange juice and apple cores, this guy tried in County. Never worked, 'cause the baggie exploded. And they tossed the cells regular after that." Curly grabs the last of the chicken and I let him, 'cause my stomach is feeling kind of rocky.

What I heard about County is, it's fucking Disneyland compared to McAlester, but I don't say that to Curly. I think about why it wasn't worth it to me, to get hold of any hooch, dope, whatever. How easy it is to score, if you're willing to pay. One way or another. Mostly the other. It was more than the method of payment held me back though. I ain't never liked the feeling of being out of control, and in there it's downright dangerous not to have your wits about you.

I look at the bottle in my hand and realize it's kind of late to be worried about that now, tonight. I hear myself laugh again.

"Where'd Angel pick that douche up, anyways?" I ask.

"Ain't he, though?" Curly nods. "She had him whipped the first day they met. 'Bout the only good thing is, he got a job over at the refinery. Makes okay money."

"Which _she_ spends."

"Yup. She's pushing for them to move house. _For the baby_." He loads the last with a sappy tone and rolls his eyes.

I focus in on that. "He's okay, though, for real? They wanted a kid?" I don't know why it feels important, but it's a relief when he nods again.

"Might be a first, in our family, huh? A planned pregnancy." He chews his lip, watching for my reaction. I close my eyes briefly, leaning back on the couch, make a snarky comment about Ma rolling in her grave, contraception being a sure fire ticket to Hell, according to her.

Now that the subject is out again, Curly asks me, almost shyly, "Did you always know? About Gramma not being your mom?"

I shake my head. That's a mistake. "Nah, 's'secret." I realize I'm slurring. "I mean, it _was_ a dirty little secret. _I _was a dirty little secret. She never knew that I knew." He nods, like he has any possibility of understanding. I swallow hard. "But, did Ria never talk to you about me, at all? Even after y'all knew?" I know, even as I'm asking, that there is no good answer to this. But somehow I can't stop myself.

Curly squirms."Not really..."

"Whassat mean?"

He swallows. "Did you know Angel was married before? When she was still in school?" I'm confused by this change in subject, but he goes on to say: "She thought she was knocked up, is why. And Ma said some stuff then, about how it was for her and how the guy ran out on her. I guess that's why Gramma took you, 'cause Ma couldn't get married, when he shot through."

Shit. '_The_ guy ran out on her'? As in, '_a_ guy'? Some random guy? I kind of always assumed...

I blurt out: "She say it wasn't Jimmy Shepard, then? Wasn't your dad?"

For some reason that makes Curly cough out a short laugh. His tone is bitter when he says, "You mean _Tim an' Angel's_ dad."

"The fuck?" I stare at him, trying to clear the fuzzy from my brain.

"Well, you'd need a private eye and a tracker dog to find him and ask, but he always said I wasn't his." He chews his lip some. "I'd hear 'em, fighting, late nights, back when we was kids, those times he was around. He always claimed he was in County when she got knocked up with me."

"_Bullshit_." I make him jump. I gesture to the both of us, to our faces. "You an' me and Tim. Anyone'd pick us out in a line up as brothers. _Full _brothers. 'Sides, I heard Ma say a lot of stuff about Ria, but she never said that."

"Oh, she had guys, when Dad was away. I remember that much."

"Yeah, but not..." I lose the thread of what I was going to say. The room's spinning a little.

"I hated Jimmy. He was a prize asshole." Curly looks like he's daring me to contradict him. He won't get no argument from me.

See, I think Jimmy _was_ my dad. And an asshole. Always did. When I was growing up and we crossed paths, he always had an extra snarl for me. A sly remark or a nasty look. Like he hated me for just existing. Why was he that bothered, if I was nothing to him? I figure wherever he shot through to didn't work out and he slunk back to Tulsa and picked up with Ria again, still not knowing how to keep it covered, since he knocked her up with Tim. Only he didn't get away that time. I guess maybe I was too old to leave Ma by then. Or they just didn't want me. That pretty much chimes with how he acted. Her too, I guess.

In fact, I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't to piss them off, a little, that I started hanging out with Tim in the first place. Soon discovered Tim was smart, though. And we got on real well. And growing up in that house with just Ma and the Virgin Mary, judging me from the couch and the mantle, I liked the idea of having a kid brother to hang with, long before I worked out that I had one for real. Two, even.

"I love you, man," I tell Curly and I mean it. I do. I throw an arm around his shoulders, to reinforce my point. "An' I 'ppreciate stayin' here. I mean, I know I ain't Tim –"

"Nobody ain't Tim," he says, kind of sad. "I bet you wish I was Tim instead of me, huh?"

That's a tough one, because - honest? – I kind of do. But I'm saved from having to explain that by the fact that I hurl, the whiskey and the sweet and sour chicken reappearing at a speed that takes me by surprise and hits Curly's shirt with some force.

Curly has a limited but explosive reaction, mostly centered on the word 'fuck', as he shoves backwards and leaps away from me. Without him to lean on, I slip sideways which makes me retch again. His vocabulary shifts to the kind of blasphemy that would have Ma reaching for her wooden spoon – I wonder, vaguely, if she kept a special one, for slapping us with, or if it was the one she used for baking. I never noticed at the time.

"_Christ_. Here, here, wait a sec...don't..." Curly rams a waste basket under my nose as I heave again. He's bare chested, so he must have lost the shirt somewhen I wasn't looking. "Christ, Dom," he repeats, but the fire's gone out of it. "You alright, man?" he lifts my head to get a look at me. I can't quite come up with the words to answer. Curly tries to sniff his own chest, see if the puke's got on him. "Christ, that whiskey was starting to look good, bro, so I guess I oughta thank you for the reminder that it ain't a good idea. Maybe I could hire you out, at meetings."

And, although it sends my head spinning again, I laugh with him.

xxXxx

So, in ten years they didn't move the parole office and they didn't decorate neither. I recognize the hole in the wall where some blond kid kicked off while I was waiting my turn, back in the day. When I was running the Yard Boys. He wasn't one of mine. He was escorted from the building by Tulsa's finest, if I remember rightly, after he messed up the waiting area and put his fist through the Sheetrock. Yeah, and the PO was so shook up he never asked me half of what he usually did, which was just as well 'cause I'd been up all night with some chick who banged like a screen door in a tornado, so I wasn't up to answering much.

Baldy though, he's all about the askin'. And the tellin'.

"I'm not so foolish as to think that you won't partake of alcohol, Dominic. And in moderation, I can accept that. But I will not tolerate any usage of illegal narcotics. Is that clear?"

Maybe not as much as he might think, but I work out he's saying '_booze, yes, drugs, no'_ so I nod along.

"I realize there will be a world of temptation in front of you..."

I wonder if he thinks there ain't temptation inside, then. If these guys in their offices got any idea of what it's like, for real, to be in there. Or out here again, for that matter.

Don't make no difference, Friday night was a one-off. I won't be puking on Curly any time again soon and I won't be sliding no wages into any River Kings' pockets neither, assuming that the Kings are still the main dealers around.

Baldy's still yakking, about whatever construction site he's got me working on. Well, he ain't gonna make me no brain surgeon is he?

"...I find keeping my charges out of night clubs is the most useful approach." He says '_night clubs'_ like Ma used to say '_fiery pits of Hell'_. Wait? Keep me away from night clubs _how_? I pay attention as he tells me he got me a night job. On purpose.

"What, one of them road crews that works overnight?" I ask.

"No, no. I explained already. A kitchen job, in an all night diner. The proprietor has helped me out before, realigning offenders with the outside world –"

"Kitchen?"

"Yes-"

"I don't know nothing about kitchen work."

"You'll learn. Anyone can wash dishes, Dominic. It's much more important to learn to get along with folk again, to get into the routine of steady employment..."

Yeah? You wanna try sharing a cell with a frustrated prison wolf for a couple of years and then tell me about 'ways to get along with folk'. I tune out the rest.

xxXxx

Curly offered again to drive me, over the weekend, but I said no. Told him I wasn't interested, but now I find myself walking here, since he's at work and I got no one to please but myself, as I drift home from the parole office.

If I'm honest, it might be more about the fact that I ain't sure how I'mma react, so I wanna be by myself.

I end up wandering about, because it's way bigger than I thought it would be and I don't have a clue where to find her.

There's no one else around apart from a blond guy sitting on a bench, elbows on knees, head down. Only I guess he looks up, as I walk past, because he says, "_Tim_?" and when I turn around, he's up on his feet, shoving his hair back as he squints at me. I shake my head, but he's already realized his mistake.

"Sorry." He holds up a hand in apology, smiling, although he still looks confused. "I thought you were someone else."

"Tim Shepard?"

He nods, relieved that I ain't pissed, I guess. "Yeah. Why, you get that a lot?"

"Not so much, but I been away."

His eyes flick to my hair. "Yeah, so's he. 'S'why I was surprised to see you. I mean, him. I mean -"

"I get it." I say, to shut him up, more than anything. He shoots me a wide grin that must get chicks panting. I ask how he knows Tim.

"Hard to find many people my age who _don't_ know him. Like, school an' rumbles an' –"

"You in his gang?"

"Nah. But we was on the same side. Mostly." He winks. Then sticks his hand out. "Soda Curtis. So, that how _you_ know Tim? The gang?"

I shake his hand and then watch his face as I tell him, "I'm Dom Riley, Tim's brother."

"Huh?" He blinks.

"You heard."

"Wait...didn't you run the gang before Tim? I didn't know you were his brother." For some reason he's smiling at the news.

I shrug, letting the statement stand. I light a cigarette and look around. "How the hell are you supposed to find anyone's headstone in this place?"

Curtis's eyes go left, to the row nearest to where he was sitting. "Oh. I guess mostly you just know from the burial."

"Yeah. I missed that. Like I said, I was away. I'm looking for my Ma."

"I think there's a map, in the office. But..." He looks kind of embarrassed. "Uh, I've seen your...Angela here. Over there." He points to a row of trees. "If that's any help?"

I shrug. "Worth a try. Thanks. I'm sorry to interrupt."

He loses the smile that seems like his normal expression. "I was just talking to my mom about something." His eyes go left again. "Trying to work out what she'd say to make me feel better, y'know?"

Not really, so I stay quiet.

He was right and Angel must visit Ma, because I find the stone. In fact it's next to the one for the man who was my grandfather, but who I would have called 'Dad', if he'd been alive. I look at their names. At the lists of 'beloved this and that'. I get the last few drags out of my weed, thinking about what the hell that all means.

"Ma?" I try, since it seems talking works for that Curtis guy. "I'm back." I feel stupid. Self conscious. But, faced with the cold stone, for once I don't hear her voice in my head. That's okay. It's all good. I wasn't expecting no great revelation. Maybe it's what I needed, to get me on my own track. No one to answer to, I can dig that. It's time an' then some, for me to be getting it right, on my own.

I take a detour, once I start walking back, and I go down past the stock yards. Only the kid with the puppies ain't there no more.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Oh, it turned out longer than I meant between posts, sorry! Thanks, Beanchop99, for the nudge :)**

**Ahem, slightly questionable sexual behavior ahead, let's remember Dom was incarcerated a good while. (And to be honest, he was never exactly enlightened before he went inside!)**

* * *

Baldy might have a sense of humor after all.

Yeah, that must be the reason he set me up here. 'Cause I feel like I been set up, for sure, as I look up, and up again, at the face in front of me. At the man mountain who just told me to call him 'Tiny'. Never had much to do with blacks before, not before Big Mac and sure as hell not in there. Aside from this one time, right before I left, when there was some kind of liberal-ass, do-gooder inspection an' this mixer got staged in the mess hall, there wasn't no fraternizing between racial groups. 'Tiny' would have been in a different block from me. He's grinning at me like a long lost friend though, right now.

"Name's 'Valentine' for real, my mama was a romantic," he rumbles, in explanation.

"Dominic." I watch as my hand disappears inside his handshake. "Mine was a Catholic." That makes him laugh and he slaps me across the shoulders.

"Okay then, Dominic, let's get you into your uniform."

That freaks me slightly, but it turns out he's only referring to an apron that I get to sling around my middle – it overlaps significantly – as he orients me inside the kitchen.

"You wash your hands there, even if you're goin' right to dishes, which is _there_. Dirty dishes pile there, clean ones go here. _This_ is food prep, _this_ is service - see the tickets on there? They stays in order, no matter who's hollerin' blue murder that they're starving, got it?"

I nod.

"An' this..." He runs his hand lovingly over the edge of the stove top. "This is _Aretha_. She don't like no one but me to touch her, so if I catch your hands on her, there will be consequences..." He picks up the biggest kitchen knife I ever saw and beams at me. "Got it?"

I am trapped in a place full of sharp objects, boiling oil and hotplates, with a madman who named an appliance '_Aretha_'.

I nod.

After I break the first plate, LouAnn, who looks old enough to be God's mother but has a mouth like a sailor on her, tells me I am just the latest in a long line of fucking liabilities and she will happily wave goodbye when I get sent back inside, like the rest of 'em.

"Ain't you never washed a fucking plate before?" she snipes, over her shoulder, as she backs out of the kitchen, carrying two full dishes and a side of fries. I am tempted to tell her the truth which is 'no', but I bite my tongue.

Baldy might think this is a joke, but I am dead serious about staying out of jail and if I gotta jump through his hoops until this freaking parole is done, then that's what has to be. Tiny catches me gritting my teeth at LouAnn's criticism though, but for some reason he grins and points at the clock on the wall of the kitchen.

At exactly one minute after eight, LouAnn hangs up her apron and stalks out the back door, telling Tiny 'goodbye' and me that she don't expect to see me back tomorrow, 'cause the cops'll be hauling me back in before morning. Tiny's response is to mime a countdown, until her taillights slide away and she is officially gone.

Tiny takes a deep breath and switches on the radio with a grand gesture. The music fills the kitchen and he starts bumping and grinding, oohing and ahhing along.

"C'mon, white boy," he teases. "Even you gotta hear the rhythm in this one..."

I don't dance.

It's another ten minutes before the next waitress shows, but luckily there is only one customer and he seems happy to doze over his meal, because I haven't been allowed out front while LouAnn was here and I don't know how to work the cash register yet.

It amazed me when I found out I was going to have to cover the counter, take the cash and all, any time the regular waitresses ain't around. But Baldy seemed like it was no big deal. Although, I wonder about that, given that LouAnn's opinion of the ex-cons who've worked here is so low.

The girl who rocks up ten minutes late is a pretty brunette chick and she takes Tiny's pretend complaints in her stride, nodding hello at me.

"I was babysitting. I can't be in two places at once." She's throwing her hair into a ponytail, so her words come out around the tie in her mouth. Once she's done, she dances with Tiny for a minute, laughing about the fact that LouAnn would have been having kittens if she heard the music.

Customers start rolling in, stretching necks and spines as they leave their rigs and their pickups and making for the counter or the booths, mostly calling for coffee before their asses are even down. Penny, the waitress, insists that I follow her out front, so I can watch her process the orders and learn where everything is. 'Everything' includes a baseball bat under the counter, 'in case of trouble'.

"Like what?" I ask. Wouldn't be the first time I used one in a non-sports context, but I'm pretty sure it'd break my parole if I clock someone, even in the line of duty.

She laughs. "I dunno. That's what I was told, so that's what I tell all the new people. Most of the customers are sweet enough." She sloshes out coffee and deflects a smutty comment from the trucker who wanted the refill. He grins back good naturedly.

"How long you worked here?" I'm watching her carefully, as she writes down an order for a double burger with fries 'and hold the coleslaw' as '_2xF nix slaw'. _Half of what LouAnn shouted at Tiny was in another language. Penny slaps the order on the clip above the kitchen hatch and whistles to let Tiny know it's there. He whistles back to show he heard.

She shrugs. "Getting on three years. I'm working my way through college. This and babysitting, I do okay."

"Yeah? So, these 'new people' you showed around before, they like me?" She's real pretty an' I like the way she ain't fazed by any of the customers.

"Ooh, you mean, did they get sent here by Mr Hutchison, the PO?" She widens her eyes dramatically. "Were they ex-cons?" I nod and she nods back. "A few. You know," she leans in, whispering, "he got me this job too." Holy shit. She looks like butter wouldn't melt. And once she sees what I'm thinking, she hoots with laughter. "He's my uncle! Why? I look like a hardened criminal?"

Before I can come up with a smart reply, she grabs a plate from the hatch and walks over to one of the tables. And I get back to the dishes. I ain't pursuing nothin', not with the PO's niece.

It gets quiet around ten and Tiny shoves a plate of food in my hands and we eat in the kitchen, where it's so hot - even though it's winter - that he's jacked the back door open with a crate of canned beans.

I take a look at the messy notice board off to one side, half covered in receipts and orders. There's a map of the whole country lining the back board, although I can only just make it out under the postcards jammed in every which way around the road and rail lines that cut up the states.

"One day, man. One day..." I squint at the big guy as he sighs and follows up his comment with the explanation: "I get the regulars that come through to pick me up them cards. Mail 'em too, some of 'em. Leastways, they're all places I wanna go one day."

"Chubbuck, Idaho...? The hell for?" I can't help but ask, as I leaf through the scenes.

"'Cause it ain't here, man. What other reason do I need? Ain't there nowhere you wanna go? Wanna see?"

My hand is frozen over a view of the Golden Gate bridge when he asks that and I'm thinking about Tim and wondering if what he told Curly is true.

A new voice joins the conversation, with a surprising offer: "How 'bout Heaven, honey? Getcha there tonight, no problem." There's a chick in the open doorway, all red lips and attitude and..._legs_.

Tiny chortles, as much at the way I jump as anything, I reckon. I make an effort to close my mouth. She's wearing something that might count as a skirt in some country where denim can only be sold in inch wide strips. She tilts her hips one way and her tits definitely my way as she follows up with a wink, "C'mon, sugar. I'll take ya right round the world."

"Boy ain't been paid yet, so I'm guessing your chances are slim, Arlene. This here's Arlene," Tiny explains, in case I'm as stupid as I'm acting.

"I don't see no boy." She's talking to him, but her eyes are still on me. I'm pretty grateful for the freaking apron right about then, as she looks me up and down, but she winks at me anyway. Then she tries to wheedle some fries out of Tiny and he tells her no. She pouts, "It's cold out here, y'know." Something catches her attention, turns out to be a couple of semis pulling off the expressway and she pivots on her high heels and disappears into the dark.

I think I can actually hear my pulse thump and it ain't in my heart.

"Don't do it," warns Tiny. "Them lot lizards'll have your money gone in five minutes flat. Leave ya with nothin' but an itch, or worse."

I'm lucky not to break another dish as I crash the stuff in the sink together. Five minutes flat sounds good enough to me.

Sometime after midnight, when Penny clocks off, Tiny cleans down the counter tops and gets me to sweep the floor. The resulting crap overflows the garbage pail, at which point I discover that taking out the trash is my job too. The dumpster is around the side of the building and I lug the garbage out there, putting it down to open the larger container.

"Got a weed, sugar?" She makes me jump for the second time that evening.

I fumble with the apron, fishing out the half pack I have left and shaking a stick out for her.

"Got a light?" Arlene is up against me as if I was already holding out a match. "You sure you don't wanna have a little fun?"

"What Tiny said. This is my first day. Pay day next week, I guess."

"Hmm." Ma had a cat for a time, when I was a kid. Arlene has got that kind of rubbing-up-against-you vibe going on. When she says, "I'm sure we can think of something, sugar," there's only one topic on my mind. She reaches up and strokes my stupid fucking short hair. "I ain't sure this is a good look on you. But I'll bet it means you'd appreciate a little relaxation."

"I'd appreciate a straightforward fuck, if that's what you're offering. You wanna talk about some kind of credit?"

"Piss off, I ain't no charity." She don't make it, although she tries to twist away, because I got her wrist in my hand. She ain't no fool, she don't pull away any harder. "Maybe not credit, but maybe a little fair exchange?"

I seen a lot of bartering go down, in Big Mac, for just exactly this kind of thing. Not sure anyone on the inside would have worked out this exchange rate, though. Not sure I would ever have predicted I'd get what feels like the best blow job of my life next to a dumpster in the lot of a truck stop. I have a suspicion that the couple of hours I let Arlene sit in the warmth of a booth are worth more to her than the burger and fries she bargained so hard for.

Either way, I reckon I got the better deal.


	5. Chapter 5

I know what they're thinking when they get ex-cons into work. I know what Baldy gets so jacked up about; the routine, the rhythm to the days. I know it and I fucking hate that it's true.

For all that my internal clock is completely screwed the first week—I work from late afternoon 'til three in the morning, then sleep 'til noon most days—I'm still doing things in a regular pattern and it almost feels like I could still be inside. And I fucking _hate_ that I find that fucking reassuring.

The first couple of nights in Curly's pad, I find it hard to get to sleep. The window's on the wrong side of the couch. I'm used to the sliver of light from the cell door being on the right. I want to move the couch but I can't face explaining to Curly.

And every noise he makes, even though he's trying to be quiet, wakes me right up, 'cause you gotta be dead or stupid, or looking for a boyfriend, to sleep through anything in your vicinity on the inside.

I think it's only when I realize I'm waiting for him to tell me I can use the bathroom every morning—for Christ's sake, I'm still shitting to someone else's timetable—that I wake up to the fact I'm free again, for real.

At which point, without that I have to get to the diner and have a clear enough head to work a whole shift, I would probably hit the inside of the nearest dive to tie one on in celebration. Or, more likely, being down on funds, knock over a liquor store or something equally half-assed.

In my time at McAlester I saw enough fucking yo-yo repeat offenders to know that going back is a real threat. Maybe they were like me before their first stretch, getting by on stolen car parts and a little lightfingered action; kids' stuff. Maybe that's what they went back to—although, seems to me shoplifting ain't much use when you go home a grown man and suddenly rent, food and shit like that needs paying for. So, what then? Armed robbery? Fastest ticket back, far as I can see.

Jimmy Shepard, he was a gold plated yo-yo. Barely around long enough to knock up Ria each time he was out. And if I there's one fucking thing I'm sure of, I'm smarter than him. So in the end, it ain't any kind of moral sense that keeps me on the straight and narrow. And it sure as hell ain't any desire to impress Baldy that keeps my fingers out the cash register at work. So what, that I'll never set eyes on Jimmy again. The only person I need to prove something to, is myself.

Although, to be completely honest, there's Curly too. Just after I start living with him, he brings home a sobriety chip from one of his meetings.

"I'm on it this time," he announces cheerfully. "Six months is half way to a year, so I figure I'm on the downhill stretch."

I know enough to point out he's supposed to take 'one day at a time'. He nods vigorously.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I ain't jumping ahead. I just feel like I can do it."

'Jumping ahead' is something his sponsor calls him on, something about the fact that Curly has a habit of joining the dots too quick and imagining stuff better—or worse—than it is for real. He tells me all about the advice this guy, this 'Lennie', passes onto him. It makes me watch my mouth around him sometimes, because it seems to me that Curly sometimes rates what other people say higher than his own thoughts. But I can't fault his determination.

"It's all good, man," he reassures me. "This last six months, I been sweet. I got this fucker nailed, this time around."

His optimism is infectious. I'm pretty sure he don't love cutting two-by-fours, no more than I love doing dishes, but between us we're covering the rent and all the fucking grown up stuff, even keeping some aside for Angel's baby.

Sometimes, I find myself engineering conversations at work, just so I can casually drop in the fact that I live with my brother, or that I'm gonna be an uncle soon. Maybe Ria don't get so many mentions, but maybe I ain't so sure how I feel about her yet. Somehow it's easier to own a kid brother and sister than it is to acknowledge a birth mother who never wanted me.

I try not to think about Tim.

I guess it took me a good couple of weeks to work out what was when, with my shifts at the truck stop sliding my daily life around the clock. For a while it was freaky to think that I was eating cereal for dinner and burgers for breakfast. And the first couple of real nights off that I got were wasted, sleeping and watching crap on TV. But that gave me time to get used to the real world, which I'm sure was Baldy's oh-so-fucking-clever plan. By the fourth week, I'm catching myself before I say or do anything too stupid and I stop asking to use the bathroom, at home and at work. Mostly.

So when Curly suggests that we go out, 'cause my next night off coincides with some plan he had, to meet up with his buddies, I say yes.

I'm regretting it by the time we make our way to the second bar. Amazingly, one of the kids is also on the wagon and he and Curly have some kind of competition going to see whose bladder can hold the most Coca Cola, far as I can tell. And whatever they put in the fucking secret recipe is making them as high if they'd been on moonshine anyway. The other two are average wasted and there ain't a one I got anything in common with, seeing as they're all Curly's age or younger, although I lost track already of who he knows from school an' who from work or wherever.

There's a crowd coming out as we're heading in and Curly greets them and they yell back. They're pretty much blitzed too, although it transpires they got a reason; they're celebrating a bachelor party. They herd around us, keeping us two from going in the bar after Curly's other friends.

"Hey, man, how's it?" There's no 'going' or 'hanging' to complete the question, but that don't seem to bother the guy who grins at me all the same, like he already knows me. I do know his face, although for a second I can't place him. "My brother's gettin' married," he drunkenly informs me, and said brother turns around to drunkenly tell him to stop notifying all and sundry. Then he sees me and cusses in surprise.

"I know, right?" says the grinning one, like he proved a point or something. "I thought it was him, too."

And the name comes back to me. _Curtis_. From the cemetery. And from further back, because the older one's got different coloring but I know I once knew who he was. I think he went to school with Tim or something like, although he was never in any gang I knew about.

Curly has his arm around the neck of a kid he introduces as 'Ponyboy'. Well, there was a guy on my cell-block went by 'Prairie Dog', so anything's possible, I guess.

"But y'all know Dom anyway, right?" he continues, "'Cause he ran the Yard Boys, before." Yeah. 'Before'. Good one, Curly.

"Holy shit," is the response from a guy with a long ginger mustache. "I remember—"

I stick my hand out to the bigger Curtis. "Congrats, man," I interrupt before anyone gets any reminiscences going. "When's the wedding?"

"Two weeks," he answers, holding up three fingers, which makes them all roar with laughter.

There's some attempt to drag Curly with them, but he points out we just arrived at this bar, so they all decide to come back in with us and we end up reoccupying the table they just left. I have to bend closer to hear, in the middle of all the racket, what the young hippie kid is asking me.

"I said, 'are you married too'?" he repeats, waving a hand to include all the rest of them and the terrible advice they are heaping on the bigger Curtis. I assume the kid's too young to remember the Yard Boys and what went down and where I've been. Hell, he looks younger than Curly and Curly's friends. He looks younger than I remember feeling, even back then.

I shake my head.

Curly, who has been to the bar for another round of pitchers, yells my name from the other end of the table, adding, before I can answer, "Steve can put you onto some wheels, he knows a guy..."

"I ain't interested in anything hot." I'd sooner ride the bus forever than get sent back to Big Mac for the sake of a freaking car. Everyone at the table finds my response hilarious, except the dark haired guy next to Curly who spits his beer out in his indignation.

"I don't fuckin' deal in stolen cars!" he splutters. I hold my hand up, to indicate I never meant to offend him. The others get to razzing him and then it's someone else's turn and the party keeps on rolling.

I'm tired. I feel like all of 'em, even Curly, got something to fall back on that I'm missing. I think about Vinnie Paulson, who was my second in the gang, and some of the others; Carter, Morris. Ain't one still around in Tulsa, according to Curly. Ain't one I would want to raise a beer with, anyway, no more'n I would any of my various cellmates.

The crowd around the table is still loud. I lean in again to tell the kid next to me that I'mma hit the head, then I duck over to the bar instead, sliding into a seat at the end.

"You wanna 'nother jug already?" The barmaid is looking between me and the table. "Curly and Two-Bit just picked up a couple."

"Nah." I hold up my glass. "I'm good."

"You just done with the party, huh?" She shoots me a knowing smile. She's pretty. It don't hurt that she ain't wearing a bra, for sure, but she's worth looking at in the first place. I get some more looking done while she serves a couple of guys their beers. She tends bar and she don't look like a school kid anyway, which is good. I'm learning to figure out what's appropriate.

She comes back to the end of the bar. "How's that headspace workin' out? Quieter over here?"

"Yup."

"Not into the whole party vibe?"

"Nah." I tell her I just met them. She shoots me a weird kind of look and I realize she called Curly by name before. "Except Curly, of course. You know him, huh?" I check.

The barmaid nods. "Pretty well." And yet she never commented that I look like him, or more specifically like Tim. Exact opposite of everyone else who knows us.

I introduce myself, although I'm damn sure it ain't necessary.

The slightly sad smile she gives me confirms it, as she answers, "Hello Dom. I'm Trish."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Well, this was a long time coming. Sorry! **

* * *

"Hello again. You got another party to avoid?"

Nope. I have no excuse for being here at all. Truthfully, I don't even particularly want the beer I order, as I smile and tell her I don't know enough people in town to get that many party invitations.

"No Curly tonight?"

Nope. He had somewhere to be and as soon as I found out it wasn't going to be _here_, I was headed this way without even making the decision.

"He's busy," I tell her. Trish smiles.

She walks away from me, collects someone's tip half way along the bar, waves them goodbye and sets a beer in front of a guy who is demolishing a bowl of peanuts like he didn't eat for three days. She has fantastic legs. Really fucking fantastic.

"What cellblock was you on?"

I blink, processing what she just said, coming out of the daydream I was having about her and her legs, and what it might feel like to trail my hand up... "What?"

"Block? In McAlester? Big place with cells?"

I just about stop myself looking around, to check who heard her, shrug, as I say, "Curly told you, huh?"

"That you was 'in'? That you got out? Any an' all of the above?"

Well, fuck you very much, Curly. Although, could my goddamn hair grow any more slowly? I might as well be wearing a neon sign saying 'ex con'. I shrug.

"I was on F block, most recent. If that means anything to ya."

"Was wond'rin' if you knew my brother, is all. I write him, it just says put Mac for the address, but he used to be in West block, I think." There's something almost like hope at the back of her eyes. "Name's Mickey. Mick Halloran."

"Are you kiddin' me? Mick Halloran is your brother?"

"Did you know him?"

"Sure. I seen him around. But I knew him before I went in, around the neighborhood. He was tuff enough, Mick." She smiles briefly when I say that. He was though. One of those rare tough guys who never signed up for any gang, managed to walk a line between 'em and keep his own rep up. You get the odd wild card, kids who are too crazy or too stubborn to follow anyone, but who you can still rely on in extreme circumstances; rumbles, back up when needed.

I have a more recent memory, from a couple of years ago, a brawl in the exercise yard, some lowlife snitch that got more than he bargained for, Halloran and a couple of others being hauled off to the hole. The snitch never did come back from the hospital. Shit.

"Yeah," Trish has been watching me. "Did you see him lately? He don't write back so much, since his sentence got extended."

I don't even know how to answer. "Wasn't much of a letter writer, myself," is the best I can do.

"Runs in the family," is her cryptic comment. She gets to collecting some empty glasses and tossing bottles back behind the counter. There's another chick working the bar tonight as well, I notice. Maybe it was busier earlier. Maybe it'll get that way later. I find myself hoping that they keep to their own sections and then I fall back to studying my beer when Trish catches me watching her ass for the second time.

"Listen," she says, the next time she passes my seat, "I hope you ain't sitting here for anything more'n beer."

"Why? What's that fucker got that I don't? He got more'n beer," I sound just pissed enough that she looks around in surprise when I point at the guy with the peanuts. Then she realizes I'm yanking her chain and she slides a bowl of pretzels in front of me with a real challenge in her eye. I grin back and chomp a handful.

The next time she's near enough, I slide back into the conversation: "So now the bar snacks are covered, you still warning me off?"

"You wanna know how many propositions I get, 'cross this bar?" She's good with the customers, I've been watching her smile and flirt. The tips jar is pretty healthy. But for some reason I'm not getting the professional barmaid treatment.

I tell her I ain't interested in how many other guys ask her out, but maybe I'm interested in which ones she says yes to.

Trish snorts a laugh. "The wrong ones, that's who. That's why I'm hoping you're just enjoying your beer."

"Wrong ones how?"

"Every possible way." She leans on both arms, hands on her side of the bar, eyeballing me, assessing me, putting me in whatever category these mysterious 'wrong' guys make up. If she thinks that's going to put me off, she's mistaken.

I wink. "Lemme buy you a drink, you can tell me all about it."

She swats at me with a bar towel. "Wrong way around. I'd be breaking some bartenders' sacred oath." But she smiles, as she goes back to serve some other asshole who's calling for a drink. For a second I imagine walking around the length of the bar and smacking him a good one, just for the pleasure of shutting him up.

A couple of chicks make their way to the bar, giggling over whatever it is that chicks find so funny about walking into anywhere that serves alcohol. They pick bar-stools midway between me and the peanut guy, checking out both of us without making proper eye contact.

I can see down the nearest girl's dress and she has to know that. She has a long necklace with some kind of feather on it, right between her tits, like a signpost. I think about following her out back to the restrooms and seeing what would happen. Only, the image I conjure up is me and a brunette, and the chick in the dress is bottle blonde.

I signal with my glass, to Trish, that I want a refill. "Can I buy you that drink now?" I ask. "Or is 'peanut-man' more your type?"

"'Peanut-man' is unhappily married an' even I know to stay out of that." She glances back to where the two chicks have moved a seat closer and peanut-man is giving them some chat. Trish rolls her eyes. "'Sides, he's killing himself to cover a mortgage an' is actually pretty square, aside from the screwing around."

"Mortgage?" I nod, like I'm impressed.

Trish smirks. "Like I said. Pretty square. Not my type."

Aha. I try not to seem too concerned. "Do you got a type, then?"

"Sure." She says, with a sigh. "Boys in gangs. Men in prison. All the same type. I think I met a guy once, hadn't never been arrested, but maybe he was a liar."

Funny girl. "And here I was, thinking I was special." _Ex-con, ex-con..._ I need a new label.

"Round here? 'Bout as unusual as a girl who don't let you...pick her up, just 'cause you buy her a drink."

I like her sarcastic phrasing. I knew a lot of chicks would do a lot of things, for a drink. 'Course that's when none of us was legal to drink. But what the hell. "That what's happening? I'm..._picking you up_?"

"Buy me a drink and maybe we'll work out the answer to that." _At last_.

She stays just the right side of arms' length though, until the bar is closing, at which time she walks around and hops up on the stool next to me. She offers me a shot from the tequila bottle she brought with her. When I say no, she pours one for herself and slams it, before telling me, "Decision time, bud. You wanna watch me get drunk here, or at home?"

An older guy I never saw before appears with a mop bucket and snaps on the overhead lights, starts slinging chairs upside down onto tables.

"Ow," says Trish, to the lights. "I vote 'home'." She slams another shot, 'for the road' and leaves the bottle only reluctantly. I take her car keys out her hand as we cross the street to the empty lot where her car is parked. She pulls up, standing close and looking up at me quizzically.

"You taller?"

I have no idea what she's talking about.

"Are you taller than Tim?"

_Now_? After _not_ mentioning that we look alike. _Not_ bringing up the fact that I went away his uncle and come back his brother, which seems fascinating to anyone who ain't on the actual living-it end of the deal. _Now_, on the way to her place, when I was just thinking all my daydreaming might get a real life walk through...

"Who the fuck knows? Maybe he wasn't done growin' last time we saw each other." I think that's what kills me more than anything. That he changed. That he might not be the kid I knew and liked, and I have no way of knowing.

Trish shrugs. "Maybe. I don't think I grew since then. But maybe it's different for girls."

"Maybe." I only got Angel for comparison. Would've been weird if she didn't change, between ten and twenty. But I don't know nothing about when chicks stop growing.

"Curly's taller, huh? Than Tim."

Shit, she ain't letting it go. "Than Tim _was _you mean?" I ask, cruelly. "'Less you seen him recent?" I ain't expecting an answer and I don't get one. What I am getting is a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. "So, you know Tim, how?"

Trish's eyes go wide. "Shit. I figured, what with Curly being mouth-almighty...He never told you, though, did he?"

"Told me what?"

Trish reaches out and touches my face, almost gently. I get the impression that she's maybe not seeing me at all. "I used to be..." She laughs, suddenly, bitterly. "Holy Christ, I can't even use the word 'girlfriend', d'ya know that? Not even in my head. Nothin' so formal..." She steps back a pace, gets a hard look in her eye. "I was Tim's regular lay. As for my feelings about the situation...Well, I guess they don't hardly matter, seeing as how he walked away from me, like he walked away from everybody else."

I may need to kill Curly.

Trish is holding out her hand, for the key. I shake my head, tell her I'll drive her. She's several drinks ahead of me—I didn't go in the bar for the beer, after all—and more than that, she seems pretty tight wound, like she might start bawling. Or stab me. Either way, I don't think she oughta be driving.

In the car she scuffs off her shoes and leans on the window, picking at a section of loose trim around the handle.

"Sorry," she mutters. "I figured Curly'd told you."

I'm thinking about what she thought my motivation was in that case, when I was checking her out. Flirting with her. Christ, I did everything short of showing her my dick.

I tell her, "Curly don't barely talk about Tim at all."

"Yeah? Well, he took it kind of hard, that Tim never came home."

"So, you and Curly was friends too?"

"Not then. Later. We used to bump into each other, when he was drinking. And later...after, y'know. When he got out." She shrugs, then waves her hand kind of aimlessly. "You need to take a left here."

I suddenly realize how long it's been since I drove a car. I'm legal, renewed my licence after Baldy reminded me to; the bastards ain't gonna get me on a technicality. But I never even thought about the process, just turned the key and did it. Supposed to be 'riding a bike' that you don't forget, only I never had a bike. Boosted my first wheels at thirteen though, so maybe it's the same thing.

"So..." she draws the word out, as we pull up outside a house with more bare wood showing than paint. "You wanna come in for a drink?"

Is this weird? This is weird. But I follow her anyway.

Trish pours neat vodkas and she's on her second before I even touched mine. She puts an album on the record player, not something I know but I'm sick of sounding like a freaking Martian, always asking 'What's this?', so I don't say nothing.

"You know that I knew who you were? Before Curly pointed you out?" Trish sits near me on the couch. Not next to me. Near me.

Maybe I roll my eyes a little. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I look like Tim. Actually, _he_ looks like _me_—"

"Huh?" She starts to smile as she tilts her head, studying me. "Nah. You _sound_ like him, but your eyes are lighter. An' your jaw's like...narrower. Same as your ears."

"_My ears_?"

"Yup. An' your nose is broke the opposite way." She demonstrates with her finger and thumb on the bridge of her own nose. My nose wasn't even broke at all, last time I saw Tim. That happened in the joint; 'industrial accident' in the workshop. Shoulda seen the other guy.

I laugh. I can't help it. I mean, we ain't freaking twins, not me and Tim, not me and Curly. Triplets, even. But most people seem to get off on the similarities, not the differences. But, if it ain't that, what the hell did she mean, she already knew me? Okay I'm bad at ages, right now, but if she was Tim's girl she must be about his age or younger. She would've been just a kid when I went away.

Smart girl. She's watching me think. Shit, I guess Tim talked about me. Maybe.

"Did you not recognize the street when we pulled in?" Trish clicks her tongue on her teeth, like she's disappointed. "The Martinez family used to live on the corner." When I don't react, she goes on, "_Marielena?_ I used to hang with her. You used to bang with her." She snorts with laughter.

Marielena. Holy shit. I remember. Long hair and an outstanding rack. She liked to be called 'Mary', though. Pretty sure she'd have dropped the '-ez' too, when she could get away with it. Somewhere in the world, there's a Mary Martin walking around who don't match her birth certificate. Hope she's still got the tits.

"You hung around with her? Did I know you then?"

When she laughs, Trish looks a whole lot younger. "Christ, no. I had two big brothers watching my every move back then. 'Sides, I wasn't even in high school. You was a dog, but not _that_ much of one."

"_I _was a dog?" I sound as offended as I can, given that it's perfectly true. "What happened to your list of bad boys? Ain't that your type, you said?"

She's paying a lot of care and attention to the bottle, as she pours herself another shot. Maybe she's loaded enough to need the precise unscrewing of the lid, the delicate balancing as the vodka hits the glass, but maybe she's considering the question.

"Well now. That'd be a list that only started out with you-know-who. No brothers holding me back by then. Hell, you was closer to Mickey than me, at that point. Plus," she tilts her glass towards the photo on the mantle, in a toast, "Joey didn't have a lot to say at all." Joey. In uniform. Right.

"Sorry."

"'S'okay." Which it obviously ain't.

"When did he...?"

"Late '63. Not long after Mickey got sent down. Best part of ten years." She watches me steadily, her next words carefully chosen. "Long time, ten years."

I agree with a slow nod.

"Sometimes, I forget still, that they're not all dead." _All_, not _both_. "I guess it don't matter. Not if they ain't coming back anyway."

"I was gone ten years. I came back."

_Change, change, change..._ Just as I think the album is scratched, skipping on the same word, the next track kicks in and the guy is complaining about loving some chick madly, as she's walking out the door. This song I know; Curly yells along with it on the radio any time it shows up.

"Did you write your girl?" Trish asks, drowsily, curling against the arm of the couch. "In all those years you was gone?"

"Do you know what I went in for?"

She nods.

"Well, she gave evidence against me. So, no. I never wrote her." I can't tell if it's the loneliness or the betrayal that scours my insides, as I admit that.


	7. Chapter 7

_You was a dog, but not _that_ much of one._

I think about what Trish said, as she sleeps in front of me. I moved to let her stretch out on the couch and there was a thin quilt-type thing on the back, so I dropped that over her before I shifted to the armchair.

Was she lit enough to pass out, or was she just real tired? Both, I guess and neither one would probably have stopped me, back in the day. I _was_ a dog. Most every girl I ever banged was off her head in one way or another. One long party.

Until Lori.

There was a real good wall holding back any memories of her, or so I thought. Apparently all it took to knock it down was one drunk chick asking about 'my girl'.

My girl. Fuck me.

I actually thought I knew what I was doing, back then. It seemed obvious to me that sex without strings was the perfect way to go. Chicks were easy to come by and if I kept them at arm's length emotionally, there was no hassle when it came to getting with any new one that caught my eye.

Except with Lori I couldn't get enough. And I never even stopped to consider that she didn't feel the same way, because everything I felt was so fucking intense. She had to feel it too, right? Well, as it turned out, no.

She was twenty one and drop dead gorgeous. I was nineteen and stupid. Too stupid to realize that her perfect hair and perfect nails, her clothes and jewelry and even her kick ass car, were the important things in her life. And her husband's bank roll was going to win out over my ability in bed, no matter what she said to me before, during and after.

That last time, when he came home from whatever 'business trip' he'd been on, she was saying those things to me, right up until the cops put me in cuffs.

_"Baby, it's okay, I'll tell them it wasn't your fault," _ was the last thing I heard, as I went in the cruiser and the husband went in the ambulance. I guess that's maybe even what she kept saying, right up until she realized he wasn't dead, that she still had to work her meal ticket.

And then the story was, that _I_ attacked _him_. Any self defense line I might have had went out the window. No proof that it wasn't my blade, even though it wasn't. No proof about anything, only my word and that counted for shit. I was never charged with rape, though, so I guess she didn't think she could get away with that. I can't begin to understand the husband's take on things.

They were sitting together in court when I was sentenced. She was wearing a new fur coat. I would have recognized the old one; we'd had sex on it, the night before her husband got back.

I can't stop myself yawning. It's probably too late to be calling Curly, if he's even home himself. Luckily I don't got any kind of curfew, seeing as it was the PO's idea I work nights and I don't think the system could cope with monitoring the odd night when I ain't working.

I find my way to Trish's bathroom—and ain't that a psychedelic trip; who knew there were so many different shaped bottles of shampoo, make up and other girly shit.

There's an empty room opposite, couple of boxes piled up, then a small bedroom that ain't in use, then her room. Girl can't use a clothes hanger to save her life; there's gear on every damn surface, including the bed. More bottles and tins on the dresser top.

Gotta admit, it smells good though. Scent and powder and…_girl_.

I look at the photos tucked in around her mirror because they're so different from what my brain expects to see. Smiling faces, instead of the centerfolds I'm used to. Kids with their arms around each other, not torn magazine pages of nameless chicks with their tits out.

And then I recognize him.

It's blurry, not posed. He's sitting up on the hood of something sleek, smoke curling away from the weed in his hand, as he studies whatever caught his attention off to the side, out of shot. It looks like the lot outside The Dingo, so it's anyone's guess what was going down.

When I flatten the print to get some better light on it, it slips away from the edge of the mirror. Underneath is another shot from the same perspective. In this one though, Tim is looking right at the lens. I think whoever had the camera must have taken a step forward, because he's in focus this time. And he's smiling.

And this is the one she covers up.

For the first time I feel angry with Tim. Maybe there were no bars in front of his face, but I think of his Army time as a sentence, something that kept him away from home against his will. And it stands to reason, when your time's done, you fucking well go home.

Home.

Coming here tonight, we drove past the intersection that would eventually take me to Ma's pad—my actual home for the first nineteen years of my life. I haven't been down that way yet.

But she's gone. Someone else lives in that house. I ain't hardly gonna stand on the street looking like I'm casing the joint. And I came back, in the way that matters, to Curly, to Angel. To Ria, for all the fucking good that's doing either of us. Home ain't about the place, it's about the people.

Like that pretty little brunette, with the liquor soaked memories of Tim.

Although, look at the other people I could list: Jimmy. JohnJo. Pat. Maybe Tim is the one following in the family footsteps, after all. Maybe me and Curly are the odd ones out.

Jesus, I'm too damn tired for thinking. I ram the pictures back in the mirror frame and sit down on the bed. Just for a second.

One thing jeans ain't designed for is sleeping in. Add in a dream about sliding your hand over certain curves while certain other parts are rubbing against you and you're just about guaranteed to wake up feeling constricted.

I'm getting used to sleeping on Curly's couch, to the light in the room, the sounds of the building. So I know I'm not there, but it takes me a second to work out where I am, because I think the details of my dream are bleeding into the process of waking up. Until I work out I ain't dreaming at all.

Trish rolls into me when I try to move away, tilts up her face and kisses me. She tastes like cheap vodka and hope.

I ask her if she's awake. She says yes.

"Yeah, but are you _awake_?"

"Dominic." She kisses me again. "I know it's you."

After, she don't just look at me, she watches me. Lies back against the pillows, lights a weed and watches me. I ain't sure if she's expecting me to go or stay. I ain't sure which way I'm inclined. I accept a drag from her cigarette.

"Do you want some coffee, or something?"

Technically, it's light enough to be tomorrow. Morning coffee sounds about right. I say yes and she climbs out of bed, fishing on the floor for a silky robe that's only half tugged around her by the time she leaves the room.

I finish the weed, find my underwear, and follow her down into the kitchen.

"Hey, you." She smiles from the open door where she's leaning, like the view of the back yard is worth it. Like she isn't a picture caught in the frame between the mirror image shitty row houses. Somehow she's cleaned up the makeup shit around her eyes, in the minute or so we were apart. Somehow she looks like she had enough sleep.

"I can't believe you ain't hung over."

"Ha. Cast iron stomach. You either got it, or you ain't." Or you've built up a tolerance, I guess. She's already started some coffee brewing, so I'm surprised when she pulls a coffee canister out from a cabinet. She opens it and holds up a joint. "Hangover cure, if you want?"

"Nah." I make out like I'm not bothered. I ain't exactly proud of living my life by Baldy's rules.

Trish shrugs and puts the can back. When she reaches for the milk, she pulls a face at the contents of the ice box. "I got eggs. Maybe."

I kick the back door shut because I can, before leaning back against the table. It's fucking freezing in here and having the choice about ventilation is still a novelty to me. "Make you French toast, if you got bread," I offer. I've been watching Tiny. Quiet nights, he sometimes grabs some shut eye in the store room and I've made two burgers and an order of hash browns without being accused of defiling Aretha, so I reckon I ain't half bad.

Trish stares like I offered to skin her cat and turn it into meatloaf.

"What?" I make like I'm offended. "I been busy, since I got out."

"Oh, I reckon you've been busy all right. No way _that_ was breaking a ten year dry spell." She jerks a thumb back towards the bedroom, gives me a significant look.

"Maybe I had a real accommodating cell mate."

"Oh!" She puts a hand to her mouth, before she realizes I'm yanking her chain. Then she laughs at her own reaction. "Real funny, asshole."

I can't help laughing. But I like that she didn't think I was too quick off the gun.

When Trish hands me a coffee she stays all the way close, up against me. It's a weirdness, that her being covered by the robe is sexier even than her being naked, given that it's so thin it's almost the same damn thing.

"I gotta go to work in an hour," she says as my free hand does a little exploring. I must look confused, 'cause she tells me she works days in a store, as well as the bar work at weekends. She's got this place on some lease left over from before her mom died, long as she keeps up with the rent. "I get off at five."

"I got nights, all week. 'Cept Sunday."

"Next Sunday night, then?"

Might be the only time we're both free, which is going to be frustrating. But a man's gotta have something to look forward to. And I guess I learned some patience.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this took so long! Anyone still in?**


	8. Chapter 8

**_Summer 1972_**

"How many of you are there? Got any more gonna pop up unexpected?" asks Tiny, after they're gone. Like we're some kind of circus troupe. I grin at the big man and tell him, _three_. There are three of us.

"That was Tim." There are three of us back together again.

"Uh huh." Tiny nods. "The protegee, huh?"

I ain't sure what that means, but I guess I told him enough about me and Tim as kids for him to know what it means to me, that he's back.

Curly is a fucking head case, and no mistake, to just show up like that. Just shove Tim under my nose. It didn't go down so good with Tim, seeing as how he nearly had a fucking turn. Thought he was gonna pass out. Must've forgot to count the years going past, or else he figured I'd be elsewhere other than here, once I was out.

Why, though? Why would he think that about me?

It may be that he ain't really been thinking straight, this little while.

There's kids come in here, mostly weekends, mostly after midnight, strung out on shit that makes 'em twitch and scratch. Makes 'em whisper to themselves, makes 'em shout at everyone else. Makes 'em...disconnected.

I don't like that Tim reminded me of them. Not that he was loaded, I don't think, just that he had that kind of lost look they get on them, like they ain't really part of the world no more.

Guess someone has to get him anchored again.

I hesitate with the payphone in my hand. It don't seem like the kind of news to give over the phone. Hell, maybe that's why Curly turned up here, unannounced. I hang up without making the call and head for the kitchen.

"C'mon, man. I never asked before. It's important." Eventually I wear Tiny down and I slide out of the kitchen door and hit the road.

The drive seems to take no time at all, but I guess that's just because I could do this route in my sleep. Hell, I probably have. It strikes me sudden-like, as I pull into the driveway, that I won't be doing it again. That I'm losing another place I could have called home.

Maybe that's going too far. Couldn't never say that Trish keeps house like Ma used to, and she sure as hell ain't the cook that Ma was. But I ain't gone hungry at her place, even if I gotta make a grilled cheese for the both of us.

I feel comfortable with her, is what it is. I feel...whatever the opposite of lonely is.

And it changed, from what brought us together. One time when her TV was on the fritz, I figured we'd spent an hour or two yakking about stuff, then found it was actually two in the morning. I don't even know what we talked about all that time. Just not Tim, for once, because Trish wasn't loaded.

If she's drunk, she's been thinking about Tim.

I like it better when she's clear headed.

Of course she's surprised to see me. She wasn't sleeping yet but she doesn't have alcohol on her breath, which is cruel. It might actually be worse to have to tell her on a night when she wasn't missing him.

"Are you playing hooky? Or d'ya get fired?" She's laughing in my face as she pulls me inside. Cruel. "What?" Trish goes still. "Shit. Did you? Get fired?"

I shake my head. "Need to tell you something. Something good."

"You sure? 'Cause you look like someone died."

Something, maybe.

"Listen, before I tell you, I want you to know that _this_—" I gesture to her an' me. The two of us. "—this was good. We had a lot of fun—"

"You're dumping me?" _Oh, such a smart chick._

"Just listen..."

**_September 1973_**

I'm vaguely embarrassed to be here at all, horribly aware that this is the women's ward, that every broad in here is having some kind of female problem. Some kind of internal plumbing deal that I don't understand and I don't wanna understand. I keep my eyes fixed ahead, like I'm in the shower block down at Big Mac. No chance of eye contact, not until I get to the end of the hallway and see the right number on the wall.

There are two beds in the room, but the other one is empty. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. Just luck, or an indication that some serious shit is going down? Angel was pretty vague, with her talk of 'emergency surgery' and whatnot.

Ria's sleeping, and she stays that way for the first hour that I'm there. A nurse comes by, takes her pulse, pokes at the IV tubing a little—I'm so bored, I'm counting the drips by then—and gives me a quick, harassed smile as she scribbles on a clipboard, then disappears. Again, what's that imply? Should she be saying something, telling me everything's gonna be fine?

Ria wakes, with a cough, rubbing at her face with her free hand, the one not stuck with whatever it is sliding into her, at a rate of four and a half seconds per drip.

"Tim?"

_Stands to reason._ "Nah, it's me. Tim went on a trip, remember?"

She blinks at me.

Tim should be there by now, him and Trish under the Redwoods. Just a vacation. Him holding down a job long enough to accrue the time off oughta be a celebration in itself. Maybe they ain't ever gonna be the kind of couple needs a piece of paper and a honeymoon to make a go of things, but that don't mean they ain't a couple.

I don't haveta play act that I'm happy for them, no more. I can even sit in their kitchen, their front room, like I'm just another visitor.

"You want something?" I offer Ria the plastic cup of water from the table and she stretches her neck to take a sip. "Anything else? You hungry?" She shakes her head, slowly, like it's a major undertaking, just to communicate. "You hurting? Want me to get the nurse?"

There's no answer, because she's asleep again. Fuck me, that was worth sitting here for a goddamn hour.

The next time she wakes up, she's more with it, she don't call me anyone else's name. She don't call me _my_ name, neither, but what the hell was I expecting?

She asks where Angel is. I tell her the kid's got some kind of cold, which apparently means Angel's housebound an' I hadda be drafted in. I'm supposed to be telling her she can stay at Angel's, when the hospital is done with her, on account of she'll need to take it easy.

Seems like it'd be easier still at her own house. Quieter for sure, without Angel's kid tearing the place down. Must be real quiet now, just Ria. Six months since ol' Ron's heart went out with a bang, leaving him face down on the bar in his favourite dive.

The nurse comes in again, looks a little less stressed. Smiles for real, this time. She's pretty cute. I only realise I was too obvious about watching her leave when Ria clicks her tongue on her teeth.

"Jimmy always had a thing for nurses," she says. Like it's perfectly normal for her to speak his name. Around me.

The fact that I can't ask her, 'Does that mean I'm _like_ him, then?' is still my normal, though. So I don't.

What I do is bring up the other great unmentionable. The latest fuck up in a long line of Shepard fuck ups. "Listen, I was thinkin'. When Curly comes home...maybe he oughta move in with you for a while."

She nods. "I think that would be good. For him." It's a way off yet, but she'll be stronger by then and it would be good. For so many reasons.

I'm trying to work out how I'mma tell him this, how to convince him, when Ria shocks me again:

"What about you, though?"

"Huh?"

"Will you be alright? On your own?" She catches herself. "I mean, can you afford the apartment?"

Truthfully, the answer is no. Me an' Tim might've come up with the money for Curly's stay in that clinic—supposedly the judge was being lenient, offering the option of rehab, instead of hard time—but it ain't been easy; 'bout everything I'd got around to owning is in hock, and, despite all the overtime I can pull, yeah, I'm behind on the rent.

I can't tell Tim. I know what he'd suggest. And the odd evening at his pad with cards and a few beers ain't the same. I couldn't live with seeing her every morning. Every night.

Ria's eyes are bright. I don't know if that's the lights or the drugs. But she kind of looks like Ma, as she pins me with that expression. I ran a lot of bullshit past Ma, back in the day, but mostly because she let me. When she wanted the truth, she got it.

I take a deep breath.

**_The End_**

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this took so long to finish! I really struggled with Dom's feelings for Trish. I know in 'Adaptation' it seemed like he let her go easily, but...he's just a really good brother... And yes, I'm aware I've just introduced a huge unanswered question about Curly. But that's another story. ;)**

**Many, many thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed and faved. (An OC story!) I appreciate all the support. Thank you.**


End file.
